


Talking to the Moon

by adorablehowell



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, Major Illness, Songfic, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-17 00:07:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5846209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adorablehowell/pseuds/adorablehowell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan hides away from the melancholy in his life by sitting on the balcony with the stars as his only source of happiness, but he encounters a man named Phil who likes to sing songs on his own balcony, and Dan finds the stars are not his only friends out there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Talking to the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> my big bang fic for 2015!!! oh my GOD it is finally Done this fic gave me Many late nights and a Lot of PAIN so i really hope you like it because this is probably the longest one shot ive ever done and im so Proud that i actually went through with all of this!!! shoutout to my wONDERFUL beta and artist ashley and eden oh myg od they are so lovely and the song is so lovely and ashley was such an amazING beta i love them!!!! BUT also special thanks to my LOVe bonita for having fic days with me that definitely kept me writing and for editing and for being overall Amazing <3333

The stars have always spoken to Dan.

He finds solace in them because they’re comforting whenever he sits on the uncomfortable lawn chair on his balcony, basking in the petrichor that’s perhaps a bit too pungent; but he’s okay with that. The rain is pattering against the roof of his house, and so Dan just sits and watches.  
Dan’s gazing up at the stars with a hopeful heart, because he loves how their flavescent hues contrast against the darkness of the night sky, and how they act as the sole source of brightness in his otherwise sepulchral life.  
Yet, as he’s looking up at these stars that are millions of light years away, he can’t help but remember that he is constantly surrounded by radiant people, who didn’t need or feel this love that he held for stars because they encompassed their own vibrance that he lacks. That fact constantly plagues him and he hates that stars act as the very reminders of the recurring dullness in his life. 

And when he looks at the stars he can’t help but feel tempted to end it all, with one leap off of the balcony that would turn haematic screams into nothingness; and he’s okay with that.

He knows he needs to stop torturing himself with such beauty found in nebulas, when the grave price was vermilion scars and amethyst abrasions engraved against pure skin. Every argument he tried to make against it contained some sort of idea about cherishing life and all of the bumps in the road were just “part of the journey”, but none of it really stuck to him because of the whirlwind of melancholic emotions that constantly ripped the recesses of his mind until he could feel nothing but numbness spreading across his body.  
Dan finds himself trying to stray away from the tempting balcony that overlooked the entirety of the London skyline, where he could view all the lives of people he yearned to be; the people who encompassed a vivacity and an affinity for life that he so desired.

But Dan knows how to laugh. He could laugh with such vigor that pain would rise in his chest and crystal tears would inevitably form in his eyes. Dan knows what ‘happy’ feels like. He could never say that he had never experienced true elation and jubilance filling his stomach. Most importantly, he knows how to enjoy life and he knows a life apart from this one filled with dreaded memories and sorrowful tomorrows. 

He just woke up one day, and he was different.

Instead of the Dan whose dimples carved permanent marks into his cheeks and laughed so loud that the noise would pierce all ears in the immediate vicinity, he lacks emotion and the curves on his smile have devolved into nothing but detached stares.

And he’s trying to stop from drowning in these dreary thoughts but attaining real happiness is too difficult and he can’t help but succumb to the suffocating, insistence waves that come from heart wrenching tears.

Every flaw, every problem he sees within himself, every late night contemplating the importance of his own life seemed to precipitate into one blur of emotions that defined his early adulthood: aching needles poking at every crevice of his being.

It’s been consistently clawing at him, and now he can’t even do anything without it seeming like it needed required ample amounts of energy that he didn’t have.

He doesn’t want to work so hard just to be happy. 

Dan sits on the sunken sofa cushion in the dark living room of his flat with the television turned on to a low drone, the incessant flashing of the changing commercials on the screen burning into his eyes. He had forgotten how long he’d been sitting there for; all he knew was that it was only to distract himself from going out onto the balcony, because the cravings for feeling and emotion became unbearable to the point where his body was longing for the ground at the bottom of his building.

But he can’t ignore the temptations because he wants to feel and he wants to stop being reminded of how fucking empty everything in his life is.  
The crisp night air feels refreshing against Dan’s skin because it’s the only thing that he has felt in the longest time; it raises the hairs lined up against the base of his arm and his neck and, funnily enough, reminds him of the time he shaved off all the hair on his arm because he didn’t like the way they made him feel in the cold.

He remembers how much he laughed at the touch of his oddly smooth arm skin, how much his parents tried to scold him before bursting into their own fit of laughter, and how he used to encompass so much emotion and feeling that got somehow got lost and left him desensitized and hollow.

All he wants is to feel again.

He pulls out a cigarette and examines it, running his fingers over the paper that enclosed these addictive desires that leave his mouth in puffs of dark smoke. The fire from his lighter blinks a warm erythraean color, painting flashing shadows against the door leading out to his balcony. It’s mesmerizing the way it flickers and dances with such haste. Dan enjoys the sight of the fleeting moment of intensity as he holds it up to the end of the cigarette and allows it to engulf the paper with vibrant flames. And he brings the cigarette up to his mouth to breathe in the sweet smoke that leaves burning poison sitting at the back of his throat, and he then releases swirling, dark gray clouds of nicotine into the atmosphere. 

The view is nothing short of breathtaking, with colorful lights in the city that sit underneath an indigo sky baring quiescent stars. His hands run against the woodwork of the railing, feeling the rough, faded white celadon paint slowly break off with each time he went over it, leaving particles of colorful dust etched on his fingertips.

Memories of his childhood came flooding back, drowning him with feelings of nostalgia that only acted as sad reminders of what he didn’t have anymore. They reminded him of a time so happy that he longed to reach, but couldn’t. Gazing at the wind slowly passing through distant trees, he recollects being ten years old, standing in the street and pretending that he controlled the wind by using over dramatic body movements that scared off their neighbors. That freedom and carelessness he held as a child was something he wanted back so badly, and the fact that it was stuck in an unreachable time is frustrating.

Dan tightens his grip on the railing to the point of wood pieces splintering through his hands, allowing shooting white pain to course through his body. It reminds him of the first day he realized the recurrence of the boring insecurities and flaws he found, except that pain was gradual and slow burning, scorching the top layer of his skin until all feeling was lost; this pain was relentless with cutting gashes inscribed against his heart made by jagged blades that left dull, droning pains in his chest.

He feels empty.

He finds it ironic how he had walked out to the balcony, prepared to forget all these memories and end any connection he had to the person that he was before, yet they kept rushing back in the way that twisting and turning cerulean waves endlessly crashed onto the shore.

And Dan’s scared, because for weeks, going on months, he had thought about this day and how it would fix everything; he would never have to be aware of his lack of feeling because he wouldn’t be able to feel anymore. But, taking in the sky’s pure magnificence hindered any previous desires of complete destruction, taking away the one thing he thought he had control over in his life.

And he merely sits, and watches.

In an effort to push away this hesitation and uncertainty he began to feel, Dan carefully climbs on the railing and sits down, precariously hanging his legs over the long drop to the gray pavement.And his heart is racing and pounding loudly against his chest, because it’s begging him not to do this, but he doesn’t want to keep listening anymore. 

He takes another drag of the cigarette, pleasuring himself in the incendiary ecstasy that he’s allowing to pollute his lungs. The fiery sensation that it brings him acts as a substitute for the explosive balls of gas above manifested in stars; the beauty and intensity of them that he has always admired, but could never find in his own colorless life. 

Far away noises of midnight dwellers wandering the city seemed much closer to home, their murmured conversations entering Dan’s ears as if they were right underneath his flat. His heart races as he glances downwards at impending death, regretting ever wanting to do this, yet still wanting to uphold this bizarre idea that feeling the hard, cold ground collide against his body would solve every doubt he had about his life, and himself. It’s an everlasting battle with his mind and his heart, when both had experienced rips and abrasions that stayed with him every passing minute, searing with pain every time he remembers the fragility of his life.

The moments sitting on the railing, whose paint was worn out from every drop of rain or snow that tainted it and ripped away its life and color, seem timeless. He’s pensive as he sits on the brink between life and death, deciding whether a life of grays and nothingness was better than one painful second of splattered blood against hopes and dreams. Tears roll down the apples of his cheeks and fall down onto the hard pavement, painting it a slightly darker color with each drop. He finds similarities between himself and the same tears that stream down his face with clawing desperation, but at the same time, it was completely different. The tears would eventually evaporate into the sky and become nothing but singular drops of water in millions of raindrops; Dan’s death would never leave the lives of those he touched. The deep red blood stained into the sidewalk would soon be washed away, but the memories and regret and anger of not being able to help him sooner would plague his family and friends long after the ruby pigments faded back into gray. 

Despite the truth in everything that was passing through his mind, Dan feels tired of catering to other people’s needs and wants because it was the exact reason of why he feels the need to do this in the first place.

With one last inhalation, Dan crushes whatever’s left of the cigarette into the faded railing, watching as it engraves a burn mark on the surface next to several others.

Each marking represented every time of uncertainty, every tear shed onto the concrete ground from every internal cry for help, for feeling. He can see all the times he’s been angry or bitter, because no one knew that he struggled with even the simplest of tasks because of this deluded desire to be everything that he couldn’t. And with each mark, another reason to end it all.

And that’s when he hears it.

It drives all other thoughts out of his head the moment he catches wind of it. He cocks his head in curious intriguement as he listens to music beginning to play.

“Please don’t see just a boy caught up in dreams and fantasies  
Please see me reaching out for someone I can’t see  
Take my hand let’s see where we wake up tomorrow  
Best laid plans sometimes are just a one night stand  
I’d be damned Cupid’s demanding back his arrow…”

The calming and soothing music fills Dan’s ears like hands running over smooth velvet, making the hairs on his arms rise with the same tingling sensation he felt when he was younger. He could feel his heart inflating at the sound of the acoustic guitar in the quiet of the night, pushing away the busy noises that came from the city and everyone occupying it.

“Who are we? Just a speck of dust within the galaxy?  
Woe is me, if we’re not careful turns into reality  
Don’t you dare let our best memories bring you sorrow  
Yesterday I saw a lion kiss a deer  
Turn the page maybe we’ll find a brand new ending…”

And his mind actually catches the meaning of the silky words being sung by this unknown man, and how it related to his life and described how small he felt in a world that was so vast, surrounded by people who held unique lives with actual meaning.

The biting thoughts of inadequacy that ceased to end ruined even the happiest of moments for Dan, instilling poison that contaminated all positivity or joy that he managed to dig out of innumerable emotions of sorrow.

No matter how archaic it seemed or how cliché it was, the parallels between his undying desperation to feel important (or feel at all) and the song that followed the movements of the wind made him relieved.

“God, tell us the reason youth is wasted on the young  
It’s hunting season and the lambs are on the run  
Searching for meaning  
But are we all lost stars, trying to light up the dark?”  
I thought I saw you out there crying  
I thought I heard you call my name  
I thought I heard you out there crying  
Just the same.”

The song ends with a flourish of random guitar riffs, leaving Dan sitting right where he was mere minutes ago, about to let go of every trouble he had with a prompt drop to the ground. All he hears of the man who was singing is simply a sigh and what sounds like the scraping of a chair being pulled up.

It begins to feel like time doesn’t exist, as he still finds himself in this haze of pure astonishment and amazement at the unadulterated beauty of the music that played, and the voice of the man who sang. The words from the lyrics sit on his mind as he remains in this entrancement that was accompanied by the glowing stars above him. His breaths come out in quivering wisps of air as he pondered what his life was to be, because he had never even imagined a life past the age of twenty-four.

And the lyrics play in his head again.

“Turn the page maybe we’ll find a brand new ending…”

Every moment and every second of his life led Dan to being there that night. If it hadn’t been for all of the anguished cries, lonely nights, and lackluster mornings, he wouldn’t have been sitting on that balcony underneath misaligned stars, and he wouldn’t have heard the soft voice singing the song that made him rethink everything he thought he wanted. He didn’t have to continue this ending that he had written for himself.

He could write himself an entirely new one.

And he suddenly realized ruby red galaxies splattered across a white canvas weren’t for him.

Taking one last look down at what almost was, Dan swings his legs back over the railing and lands onto the ground of the balcony, glad to feel something stable underneath him after hours of tense sitting. He searches the balconies surrounding his, trying to find this man who showed him a new perspective for a new life, only to see that he was the only one even awake on his side of the building.

“Thank you.” Dan barely whispers, knowing well that the man couldn’t hear him, but knowing that saying those words simply acts as a reminder that he was still alive.

Able to speak, experience, live.

Dan is still by no means cured from the daunting pain which suddenly appeared his life that he needs adjustment to, but there’s a new sensitivity and liveliness that rekindles his drive for betterment of the one life he has. Despite knowing the discoloration that plagues his life and how it pales in comparison to lives filled with vibrancy and shining smiles, he doesn’t want to miss looking at starry nights tinted a deep purple or miss savoring food that acted as a true reminder of how sweet life could truly be.

Most of all, he wants to find the man on the balcony with the angelic voice and the poetic songs that helped him realize a new ending to what seemed like a doomed life.

~

It’s become a daily routine for Dan to go out onto the balcony at odd hours of the night and early morning just to hear the melodic songs that play. It’s tiring at the very least, and his body constantly begs him for the comfort of his warm duvet whenever he’s sitting in the uncomfortable lawn chair placed on his balcony.

But it was worth it.

Dan can’t describe what the songs mean to him. It’s as if every word of every lyric of the songs was taken straight from his brain, illustrating everything he feels about celestial beings, galaxies, and their pure excellence into poetry that never fails to send chills up his spine.

He views the curves and the shadows on the moon through hopeful eyes of caramel brown enclosed by light flutters of eyelashes. The moon epitomized the idea of luminescence in darkness, and this fact had always resonated with Dan, who desperately needed to find his own sun and moon. It didn’t just light up the night sky in his eyes; it symbolizes something much bigger than that. His mum, during times of hardship, never failed to remind Dan that getting lost in life was okay. Mum always spoke about finding one’s way back even when nothing seems retrievable, often referencing how the moon would sometimes slowly fade out of the night sky, but never failed to make its way back home.

And it was never truly lost in the first place; it had just lost its brightness in a vortex of dark skies.

Dan knows he needs to keep his brightness before he loses himself.  
It startles Dan when the music of the night begins to play, interrupting the deep thoughts he got lost in through speculative contemplation underneath the celestial sphere that he so loved.

“Now that he’s back in the atmosphere  
With drops of Jupiter in his hair, hey, hey, hey  
He acts like summer and walks like rain  
Reminds me that there’s a time to change, hey, hey, hey  
Since the return from his stay on the moon  
He listens like spring and he talks like June, hey, hey, hey"

The music is always soothing, and with each passing night there’s a growing sense of familiarity that swells within Dan. He finds that, recently, he has started to tap his feet to the music’s beat. It’s always paired with a smile that somehow creeps on Dan’s face, but he wouldn’t ever want to admit that he has always held a love for dancing and singing, even if it wasn’t necessarily good. 

It’s beginning to seem that stars aren’t the only things that speak to Dan anymore.

Soft sounds of strumming against fragile chords of the guitar tickle the insides of his ears with breathy whispers of velvety singing.

Dan continually smiles and allows low, rumbling noises of singing to collect at the back of his throat in the form of humming. It’s calming to keep his breathing in time with the tempo of the song, and it induces drawn out yawns inundated with soporific hums. 

“But tell me, did you sail across the sun?  
Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded  
And that heaven is overrated?

Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star–  
One without a permanent scar?  
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?”

With every night spent admiring sparkling lights on a backdrop of deep blues, Dan grows more fond of the music that acts as his savior during disenchanting days. He finds a friend in the lyrics unlike any other; a friend that understands his love for everything interstellar. There’s a comfort in the lyrics that distracts him from the undying truth of his loneliness, and the hollow ache inscribed in his fingertips that defines how unloved and unimportant he believes he is. It takes away from the reminder that people rarely give him the time of day and takes away from the fact that no one has ever fought against the constant stream of “I’m okay’s” that he always wears on his exterior to show if they even truly cared. 

He’s a dull star in the sky while everyone else is a breathtaking constellation.

Despite all this, the songs, albeit for short periods of time, help to draw away from the negativity that he willingly instilled in his own bloodstream to flow throughout his entire body. 

“But tell me, did the wind sweep you off your feet?  
Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day  
And head back to the Milky Way?  
And tell me, did Venus blow your mind?  
Was it everything you wanted to find?  
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?”

Dan’s so enveloped in the lyrics of the song, lightly singing along in quiet timidness to the lyrics that signify so much to him, that he doesn’t realize when the song has stopped, and his voice is the only noise in the silence of the night. He can feel his face burning much like the cigarette smoke that was scraping at the surface of his cheeks, singeing them with embers of embarrassment at singing an unknown duet with this man. 

“Sorry.” he clears his throat, unable to carry much volume in his voice that the word almost carries off into the dreary atmosphere. 

There’s a brief lapse of sound, when it seems like the crickets have stopped chirping and the wind has stopped flat, but what breaks the silence is a melodic laugh. It’s fleeting, but beautiful nonetheless. The laugh is reminiscent of pure, white innocence splashed against a sable background, releasing Dan of any adverse thoughts and displacing them with memories of childhood.

“It’s okay, I kinda liked it,” he hears the man say, his voice sounding slightly amused.

And all Dan does is smile to himself, edges of his lips curling upwards into a huge grin, with his hand hovering over his mouth and feeling his first genuine smile in a long time. He could hear a door in the distance opening and closing, indicating the end of their encounter for the night being. Dan can see the moon and can barely make out the dark craters engraved on the surface of it.

And the smile doesn’t leave his face.

~  
“You’ve totally fallen in love with the guy.” PJ jokes, smashing buttons on the game controller erratically with eyes intensely staring at the TV screen.

“You know it’s not like that. I just think, I dunno, that the songs are really beautiful and I want to fall asleep listening to them. It’s just really soothing and it’s just a refreshing change.” Dan shrugs his shoulders as he absentmindedly presses buttons. He isn’t as nearly into the game as PJ is.

“What’s so great about stars anyway? That kind of stuff’s really boring, don’t you think?” 

Dan’s heart sinks deeper into his stomach. It’s those kinds of comments that made him feel out of place, because people never for a second believed that Dan could ever experience loneliness with all of the friends he had, yet he has never truly felt like he had found someone who truly understood him. He knows that he loves all of his friends, but it was disheartening to know that he connected more with a man who he has never met before in a few nights than friends he’s known for years. They didn’t get why he loved aphelion or cosmos found in the vastness of the sky. They didn’t know anything about Dan past his sarcastic exterior and love for obscure music. People look at Dan and they see the video game aficionado, the golden retriever in him that gets lost in waffles of rants about the artistry of Kanye West, and the nerd who cries when he gets too involved with fictional universes; they never see the broken down man who can barely bring himself to get up most mornings, or the Dan who contemplates painting cinnabar pigments of spilt blood onto the pavement.

And none of them knew about the balcony. 

It’s difficult to internalize all of the emotions that make him who he is; it’s hard acting like he’s okay underneath a veil of worthlessness that weighs down his body with silver chains that clack dauntingly with every movement. Dan knows that he doesn’t ask for much; all he wants is for someone to let him know things would be okay and that he’s here and breathing and living. He constantly has to pretend that he doesn’t feel like he’s suffocating in a sea of troubles that fill up his lungs and disable his ability to breathe, because it’s like every time he finally resurfaces, the waves swallow him back up in a sea of despair because it’s like he doesn’t deserve to be loved or deserve to be happy. 

“Yeah, I guess it is dumb.” Dan’s voice is monotone to hide his disappointment that even one of his best friends couldn’t even pretend to enjoy something that made him actually happy. 

“But this guy. Maybe you should figure out who he is. Do something crazy for once in your life.” PJ suggests, standing up from his seat as he tries to gain an advantage over Dan in Mario Kart.

Dan merely tilts his head and gazes at the screen as he leisurely passes the finish line and claims first place. "I did something mental when I became friends with you.”

He laughs as PJ feigns hurt, but he can’t help but feel like it’s empty and lacking emotion. It’s upsetting how easily Dan can fake happiness, because it’s blurring the line that separates reality and fantasy, trapping him in this delusion that makes him think that he’s happy when he isn’t because it’s all a lie, a facade that he keeps to block anyone from discovering the reality buried deep within his eyes. 

Dan excuses himself to step outside on the porch and he leans his elbows on the railing as he looks out at the white clouds against light blues. He can feel the wood pressing against the cracked crevices of his porcelain skin, broken down from all that haunts him before he sleeps and the terrors that cease to stop following him. 

The box of cigarettes jutting against the pocket of his skinny jeans is more prevalent, and his lungs ache for cloudy air seeping through and releasing particles of toxic nicotine into his body. He digs the carton out of his pocket and taps a cigarette out into his hand. It’s weird, because he gets this realization, this revelation that he feels lost without the presence of the slim width between his middle finger and his index. The feeling is just natural. 

And suddenly he can feel emerald eyes burning into the back of his head. Dan’s friends knew that he enjoyed the occasional smoke; the way that he relishes in the ecstasy of warm puffs of smoke slowly spilling out of his mouth in swirling pleasure. Yet, whenever they saw him tapping the end of a cigarette, allowing the sparse blinks of fire to fly out from the gray ashes, they couldn’t help but always groan at his terrible habit. 

Dan knows it’s bad. He’s not so naive as to be blind to the health issues correlated with smoking, but he can’t deny how good it feels. He loves to experience the sensation of stress drifting away with each breath he takes in of the wisps of polluted smoke, feeling it stirring in every fiber of his body before he releases ever so slowly with a euphoric exhale. It’s impossible to escape his admiration for how lit cigarettes glow a deep orange mixed with bright aureolin.

He hates that smoking has become such a big part of who he is, because despite the fact that every deep inhalation allowed temporary moments of ecstasy enter his body, it’s not true happiness and it could never replace true happiness. All he is, is a transparent, broken down man walking on murky smoke, trying to stay afloat when the only thing keeping him up is the same toxic smoke he constantly fills his lungs with. 

It helps him feel for small amounts of time, but all he wants is something permanent; he doesn’t just want hollow happiness that sits, bubbling at the bottom of his stomach just aching for real emotion. 

Dan keeps his gaze on the high clouds sitting in the ultramarine sky that reminds him of rolling waves upon a tan shore. The whites that curl at the end of the waves are reminiscent of the clouds in the sky and how they slowly wash back into the deep seas of crystal blues. 

The smoke rises up higher into the atmosphere and he can see it dissipate into the air, spreading the intoxicating allurement of cigarette smoke through the slight breeze that carries it, and twists it until it inevitably fades into the atmosphere. 

And he hears coughing. 

 

It surely isn’t anyone directly under or above him, but it’s too difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of it. The sound’s annoying, coming in spurts of urgency that die out only to come back with a clawing that pierces his ears with glassy daggers of choked noise.

His face scrunches into one of curiosity and concentration as he attempts to really listen to the coughing, which sounds all too familiar to the beautiful voice he had been dreaming about for the span of a month.

He reminisces of the gracious songs that he revels in every starry night, how soft the voice is in comparison to the gravel that sits on his throat after smoking. And the coughing, although brief, is rough, a cutting noise scraping at the desperation of silence for his ears.

He despises it, and yet he’s stood there, sucking in whatever was left of the cigarette stub into his lungs. It’s destroying him and he knows that soon enough, he’ll be coughing until dizzy stars paint themselves on the insides of his eyelids whenever he blinks. Swirling neon colors appear etched permanently to the safety of his closed eyes, keeping out the reality of his inadequacy that he constantly tries to avoid.

PJ suddenly opens the door to the balcony and sighs exasperatedly, making sure his tone distinguishes the real reason he was calling him back in. “Dan, you bloody chimney, come back in and rematch me. I swear, I’m getting close to winning one of these days.”

With a smirk, Dan hovers his face closer to PJ, flaunting the cigarette by waving the remnants of it in his face before holding it up to his lips with an over dramatic inhale.

“Get that trash away from me! And now I’m not talking about the cigarette.” PJ gags and closes the door on Dan, making obscene gestures through the view of the window.

Dan rolls his eyes and rubs the end of the cigarette into the railing, laughing to himself. “Fuck off.”

Another cigarette butt falls to the ground and joins the rest of the fallen memories scattered across the ground. He sees the reflection of past trips to the balcony in askew pieces on the ground, mocking him with their presence because they acted as the reminder that that’s all that he is: broken.

~

 

Altschmerz  
n. weariness with the same old issues that you’ve always had—the same boring flaws and anxieties you’ve been gnawing on for years, which leaves them soggy and tasteless and inert, with nothing interesting left to think about, nothing left to do but spit them out and wander off to the backyard, ready to dig up some fresher pain you might have buried long ago.

 

He stares at the emptiness that darkness brings through tired eyes and sleepy yawns. There’s a calm that comes when he awakens, blinking exhaustion out of the browns of his eyes with small knowledge of his consciousness. His eyes flicker across the darkness, seeing nothing but the unknown locked in his sun deprived room that seems to swallow him up with growing insistence.

Grasping at the sheets that he hasn’t cleaned in ages, all Dan does is breathe.

He makes note of his deep inhales and exhales, finding it calming to just listen to himself and allow himself to be aware of his existence and the importance of every breath he takes.

Reaching over to his bedside table, the blinding light of his phone as he checks the time burns into the tire in his eyes.

8:00 am

He allows an exasperated sigh to leave his mouth; it was time for work.

No matter how much money he earned or how his job funded basically all of his living expenses, he never really enjoyed the job that much. Even before all of this sadness, this melancholy, he had always found it numbingly dull, but it paid the bills.

He walks to his closet door with heavy feet pounding against the wooden floor, as he has not even the slightest bit of energy to lift them up and place them down in a quiet manner. He’s not even thinking about how insensitive it is the the flat underneath his, but all that’s on his mind as he walks through the dreadful wasteland that is his room to his closet is how he will survive another day of dealing with painstakingly boring files.

“Fuck.” He mutters to himself as he sifts through the clothes that he actually brought himself to hang up, realizing that he had forgotten to iron what he needed to wear today.

Picking up the crinkled, white dress shirt out of a pile of a mix of dirty and clean laundry, he attempts to straighten it out by pressing it against his chest and rubbing against the biggest wrinkles.

And it’s not surprising that when he holds it back up to look at it, the amount of wrinkles hasn’t changed in any way.

Glancing at the sad excuse for iron work through the mirror, he can’t help but let out a little laugh. It’s little, but it’s genuine and real, because there’s no one around to hear it or to please with it; it’s just for him to hear and to know that he’s capable of being happy alone, that he wasn’t a robot who laughed on command only because that was what was expected of him.

He would have never guessed he’d be laughing at 8:23 in the morning because he had attempted to iron a shirt with his bare hands.

This was just for him to know.

~

 

Dan walks into the entrance, with a stereotypical black briefcase in hand. He carries it around just for show, not having really any sort of use or need for it. Often, he’s reminded of the time that he swung the briefcase so hard and knocked down an entire display of crisps in the grocery store, and it’s a refreshing because he remembers the moments after, of awkward apologies spoken through bursts of uncontrollable laughter.

As he’s walking through the building, going up endless flights of stairs that leave his breath shaky and his legs tired, he thinks further about the “grocery store incident”.

It’s the first time in a while that he’s been able to vividly remember and pinpoint a moment before his mind was clouded with thunderstorms and pounding rain that still dig through his mind, searching for any remainder of emotion that’s stuck buried underneath this haze of nothingness.

That morning he had woken up to warmth against his skin, a feeling of contentment that coursed through his body that he can barely remember, let alone experience now.

His feet make contact with the steps as he jogs up the stairs and the sound echoes loudly against the walls to the point where it’s overly annoying and he’s trying not to let it bother him but he can’t think and he’s trying to remember what it feels like to wake up to a mind that’s not constantly filled with hazy, swirling fog.

That day at work had been the first day he finally figured out how to use the damn toaster, because one thing he distinctly remembers is too many mornings with cold bagels that were bland and tasted like what he had had in his fridge at the time.

And he remembers how pathetically excited he was when he realized that what he had been relentlessly poking for weeks wasn’t actually the on button, but also embarrassed thinking of every sleepy morning when co-workers would stare at the idiot jabbing at the side of the toaster and wondering why it wasn’t working.

Dan finally makes it to his floor, staring at the dulled plaque that read “Legal Department”, with the last “t” fading ever so slightly.

The sun had been beating down on him that day when he was walking to Tesco’s after work, making him just as sweaty as he was now. There was a bounce in his step and a jubilance in the way he playfully swung his empty briefcase back and forth, because he used to encompass this positivity that he always liked to showcase, as it made even the most mundane of tasks worth it.

People greet Dan when he enters, smiling, familiar faces that he sees five times a week, and frankly, gets tired of seeing at times, because it’s the same thing everyday and it bothers him. He wants more jabbing at toasters and he wants more loud laughter at the secret jokes that people post on the fridge. But he has that; it’s just not the same, and he desperately wants excitement back and he’s not sure why he can’t muster enough emotion to feel the same way he did before.

The workers smiled at Dan as he somewhat skipped through the doors, laughing because of the surprised smiles that he received as a result. Cold air raised the hairs on his arms and he remembers letting out a shaky “brrr” the moment he walked in, followed by a small giggle as he started walking towards the bread area so he could finally have toasted bagels in the morning. The exact moment he changed directions, his briefcase swung around and knocked over the display of crisps, causing an absolute horrid noise as the metal rack crashed against the tile floor. A lingering silence washes over the entire store, and Dan was sure he could hear his heartbeat in that moment.

The chair makes a “whoosh” noise as he sits in it and his cushion takes in his weight as he rests his entire body, which was not only tired from what seemed like an endless number of stairs, but tired from long nights of staying out listening to the music that seemed to be the only uniqueness he kept in his life nowadays.

 

After what seemed like hours, the same workers that welcomed Dan on his way in simultaneously burst into fits of laughter at the massive man who managed to cause a huge mess his first minute in the store. Dan found himself unable to process anything that had happened because he’s lost in his own trance of suffocating laughter that goes quiet because of how hard he’s laughing, and tears filled his eyes with stinging intensity. Pain rose in his cheeks as his dimples burned a permanent presence on his face. He tried to apologize amidst the roaring laughter that filled the store, but all he could muster was broken phrases that were constantly interrupted with hyena-like laughs.

Dan takes out his files for whatever law-related problem he needs to deal with for the day, feeling the skin of his cheeks in remembrance of that pain of too much happiness, when now he has to deal with the burden of a lack of it that leaves an ache that never really leaves. He’s racking his brain for any indication after that incident where it could have went wrong, because the days leading up to the realization of these flaws that he had been dealing with his entire life are fuzzy and the back of his throat is numb with dry words that try to articulate how he feels about the unknown and the desire to know.

“Dan? You okay?” Amber asks from in front of his desk, leaning over the cubicle to see the mess that Dan had made, with hands tangled in the sea of papers and knocked-over mugs with pens overflowing the desk. “This doesn’t really look like the desk of our star worker.”

Dan lets out an exasperated sigh. Amber was this girl whose cubicle just so happened to be next to Dan’s, and he thinks she’s nice and and pretty and all, with caramel curls of hair falling against the freckles on her cheeks, but fuck, did she have the tendency to insert her nose where it didn’t belong.

“Yeah, sorry. Just a lot on my mind, I guess.” he attempts to straighten out the papers and rams the pens back into the mug haphazardly.

She notices the dark circles under his eyes and the rustled hair from constant pulling and ruffling. “You seem to have a lot on your mind lately. Sure everything’s alright?”

“I dunno.”

It’s not really a lie, because he doesn’t really know how to explain what this is. He’s not sure how he would explain experiencing bursts of sadness that come and go in irregular patterns, leaving him exhausted from trying to stabilize his feelings to something that he’d have control over, rather than having him wondering when the next wave was going to come and how violent it’d be.

She’s not convinced, and he can see in the green specks of her eyes that she’s suspicious of something past the nonchalant exterior that Dan’s fighting to keep, as to not have to deal with facing these problems, because he’s not like this and he doesn’t want to admit that something isn’t right.

Her eyes are burning into his, and they’re insistent. They’re searching through his eyes for any reason for acting this way that he’s not aware of, and it’s making him uncomfortable to be probed and inspected like this, like he’s a fucking alien, because he’s not some kind of extraterrestrial monster; he’s just sad and he wishes people would stop seeing it as something bigger than that.

He’s glad when she goes returns back to her own desk, leaving him with this mess that disallows his ability to think straight, because this clutter is transferring to his mind and he can’t file his thoughts as well as he can file legal documents.

Dan is left with the burden of wallowing in his own self-conflict of why he pushes away people who just want to help, but at the same time, wanting to be left alone to feel sorry for himself, because no one else is going to do it for him.

An hour passes of the same filling out of paperwork that he does every other day. It’s not mind stimulating in the slightest, but more of busy work that drowns out the background noise with static that rings in his ear. Amber pokes her head from her desk and it surprises Dan so much to the point he almost falls out of his chair, desperately holding onto the wall of the cubicle in order to balance himself.

“Bloody hell, Amber! Are you trying to murder me or something?” Dan clutches onto his heart and feels it pounding against his chest with growing volume.

She ignores his comments. “I’m not gonna force you to tell me anything. But Walter’s out for today, so I called PJ to come get you, and I’m going to be taking all your files for today. Go out and have some fun; you look like you could use a nice day out.”

He softens at her gesture, but still his heart is beating with intensity as he picks his chair back up. “I think what I could use more is an office away from yours, Amber. It’d be better for my health.”

Amber laughs and reaches over to playfully mess up Dan’s hair, because she knows how much he hates it. “Have fun, Howell. You owe me one.”

~

“You didn’t have to make a scene at work; if you wanted to see me, all you had to do was ask.” PJ teases as Dan gets into the passenger seat of his car.

“Piss off, you know that I’d rather be doing whatever they have for me in there than having to deal with you talking about your piece of crap car for an entire day.”

PJ opens his mouth wide in fake disbelief with a loud scoff. “This piece of crap has taken you loads of places, so I’d keep quiet.”

Dan rolls his eyes with a small laugh. He sits and stares at the passing trees and street signs as PJ drives (quite quickly, Dan notices) through London, and he’s not sure where they’re going, but the scenery is beautiful. The trees stand tall and paint dark green against the serene blues of the sky. The colors mix in front of Dan’s eyes through blurs that make his head a bit dizzy, but it’s nice to focus on something, while at the same time allowing his mind to wander to thoughts that he’s not willing to voice out loud, leaving him to contemplate the things that would answer what Amber asked.

“Peej, where exactly are you taking me? Is this the beginning of a horrible horror movie where I’m going to have to maneuver my way out in some really impossible way that defies the laws of physics?”

“Oh my god, shut up. I’m taking you down to shops to get you to fix what you call “clothes”, because obviously you don’t know what an iron is.” He makes fun of the poor iron work that Dan had attempted that morning, which really, he never expected to work in the first place.

Dan’s suddenly reminded of how he felt after trying to stupidly iron his shirt using the laziest and most inefficient technique that was in the book, and how it was the first time since the beginning of this daunting altschmerz that he genuinely was able to make himself smile. It’s the smallest indication that maybe, just maybe, he can fix whatever was left of his emotions, into something manageable that he could actually maintain control over. 

The car stops suddenly, and Dan realizes that he’s been lost in thought the entire car ride, focusing his eyes to the outside to see crowds of people walking in different directions surrounding the shops, with various street acts scattered across the roads. 

“There’s the gang!” PJ points out, jumping out of the car before Dan could even utter a response in response to PJ’s usage of the word “gang”.

Dan follows him similarly to a person walking an overly-excited dog, struggling to keep up. Everyone greets him with pleasant surprised smiles, going on about how lucky he was to have been able to leave work early with no consequence. 

Dan just laughs quietly and says, “I know.”

~

By the end of the day, Dan’s legs are more tired than he could have imagined; the stairs that morning seemed like a walk in the park in comparison to the ache and tire that they felt after hours of being dragged around the shops. 

Outside, fairy lights hang around the tall trees, illuminating the still busy walkway with glowing, yellow lights that illustrate this almost serene wonderland that encompasses the meaning of enchantment and beauty. The stars are just as bright, but still seem a bit drowned out in comparison to the multitude of lights that were lit on the outsides of the shop. Crisp air makes it easier for Dan to breathe, and he’s not as into the current conversation that his friends were having about the etiquette on first dates, so he just thinks. Thinks about the balcony and that morning, how they both seemed to have happened so recently, but at the same time the thought of them seems to slip out of his hands as his memory begins to lose even the smallest presence of happiness that he felt that morning. He’s interrupted by an all too familiar sound just as they’re about to get back into PJ’s car, and he stops walking to stop and listen.

“Don’t you dare let our best memories bring you sorrow  
Yesterday I saw a lion kiss a deer  
Turn the page maybe we’ll find a brand new ending…”

“That’s him!” Dan blurts out without thinking, only to realize that no one except PJ knew who he was talking about.

“Who is him?” PJ’s rightfully confused at first, but soon the connection clicks in his head and his eyes widen. “Wait, you’re talking about the him? As in the guy you’re obsessed with and you’re too wimpy to even ask for his name?” 

Dan’s too in shock to acknowledge the insult that PJ made. “Yes, it’s him. I’m sure it is.” 

“I don’t know what you’re on about, but it seems important? What are you waiting for, Dan? Go get whoever you’re talking about?” Louise is openly confused as she speaks. 

Dan tries to look over the enormous crowds of people, who were still bustling around at this time of night to find the best deals at the shop. He’s walking with the same bounce in his step that he once held before, and he’s searching, but he doesn’t even know what for. 

The music is close to ending and his desperation is growing quickly, and his breathing gets caught in inaudible yells of frustration. It’s like he believes that finding this man would solve everything that he’s faced with, when it’s nothing but a transparent dream that he falls through whenever he tries to reach. And the fog leaves him cold and empty with yearning for answers that he can’t seem to find for himself.

Dan’s pushing through the crowd, offending many passerbyers with elbowing and insincere “sorry’s” that roll off his tongue without meaning. The lights are blurred around him, yet they’re still screaming at him with such intensity that makes his head spin as he’s stumbling through this crowd with no destination; just this delusion of being able to find one person out of hundreds by following a voice. But voices aren’t physical or concrete; they’re able to come and go through the fastening pace of the wind, and there’s no substantiality to it that sticks.

He finds a crowd around what seems like the last performer, and his heart drops. As he makes his way through the last groups of people, there’s the last blinking of hope that’s still ablaze in his heart of validating how he was able to save himself thanks to weeks of listening to the songs from this man.

Left in the middle of the crowd is the remnants of the last performer; coins spread across the floor, with no one there to claim them.

It’s empty.

~

“Sorry you missed your soulmate, Dan. Sleep well tonight.” PJ drops Dan off and pats his shoulder in consolation.

Dan nods and politely smiles in response, not feeling up to speaking because his voice feels dry and there’s a lump in the back of his throat that burns with every breath.

He walks into the bathroom and washes off his face, staring back at his reflection with indignation. The browns of his eyes are dull, yet they’re piercing staring back into their own. Freckles are dotted sparsely across his face and he mindlessly connects them with his fingers, trying to make note of the sensation of feeling his skin pressing against his own. It’s a reminder of being alive and the ability of touch to comfort, no matter how sparing the connection.

He walks out to the balcony, just like any other night, and notices how much brighter the stars shine in his quiescent neighborhood in comparison to the artificial lighting that was covering something so pure and real. The moon has gone full cycle, now prominent in the sky as a glowing orb of albicant mixed with dots of black.

Dan’s waiting for the familiar sound of the door opening and the chair being pulled up; it was the only recurring thing in his life that he actually enjoys, because the result isn’t boring normalcy that leaves something to be desired.

But it doesn’t come.

It’s quiet as he sits in the chair, waiting for something that he’s not sure is going to come. Dan isn’t quite sure why he feels compelled to go to the balcony every night, when most of the time he never really spoke a word that indicated that he was there listening. It was just for him. 

The silence sits on the air and Dan’s thinking too much, because the quiet is inhibiting these thoughts that are screaming at him and there’s nothing to drown it out, no matter how hard he tries. He tries and tries to control his thoughts and to stop stressing out over things so stupid, but they’re slipping out of his control like sand running through the crevices between his fingers. It’s spilling everywhere and making a mess but he can’t keep them in his hands because there are so many and he can only contain so many before they inevitably become too translucent to hold onto. 

“You there?” a voice startles him, and god, he wishes that he hadn’t yelled out in surprise at the sudden remark.

Dan breathes out with a small laugh. “Yeah." 

"Are you going to serenade me again?” he retorts and Dan can just hear the teasing in his voice and it’s driving him crazy.

“Sorry, I don’t talk to strangers.” 

“Yeah, you just scream bloody murder whenever they try talking to you.”He’s not sure what to say in response, and his face is a confusing mixture of disbelief and infatuation, but he’s smiling and that’s all he can really think about. 

"Shut up,” Dan manages to utter out in his fit of giggles. “I swear I’m not that jumpy usually. It’s probably just because you’re a scary guy who messed up strumming the first chord in yesterday’s song.”

“I was about to sneeze! It’s not my fault my own body decided to attack me before my big number! It was almost as bad as the time that I banged my guitar into the hinge of my front door; now my guitar’s all messed up!“ He defends himself and even though Dan’s never seen him before, he feels as if he can imagine his face in his head. 

"And who’s the owner of this defiant, murderous body?”

Dan awaits in the silence that follows soon after, and his breathing is steady. The air escapes his mouth into the cold stillness of the atmosphere, coming out in misty wisps that fade with every breath. It’s painful waiting for an answer, mostly because a name like “Nigel” would certainly ruin this almost ethereal image that Dan held of this man.

“You can call me Striker." 

Dan stifles a laugh with a sort of disbelieving scoff. "Yeah, and you can call me Kanye West." 

"Now that’s just being unrealistic.” His voice goes a bit high and Dan’s glad that the man can’t see him, because his cheeks are aching from smiling too much. 

“My name’s actually Dan, if you were actually interested in knowing." 

"Phil." 

Phil. Dan mouths the name and feels the last "l” against his teeth as he mouths it a few times, seeing the way it feels on his tongue. It’s different, but it’s a good different.

“Nice to indirectly meet you, Phil." 

~

He’s been trying to avoid this. He really has.

Deliberately stalking someone just to tell them the impact they’ve had on him wasn’t something Dan would be proud to have on his résumé. Thinking about it, the idea gets slowly more incredulous and there’s no sense of logic behind it, only emotion.

Although, Dan wouldn’t go as far to say "stalking”.

He runs his fingers over the purplish veins that are prominent on his wrist, distracting himself with the fragility of them underneath his fingertips. Dan always had this habit of doing this when he was on edge or nervous, although he’s not sure why.

“Excuse me?” Dan calls out to his landlord. “John? I’ve got kind of an odd question." 

John looks up from his filing and raises his eyebrow at Dan, his hazel eyes prominent underneath the low, artificial light. "What is it, boy? I’m quite busy." 

"Yeah, I know, I’m sorry. I just have a small question; you mind letting me know a little bit about a guy named Phil in the building?”  
John shifts his eyes, outwardly taken aback by Dan’s request. “Dan, don’t you think that’s a little-" 

"Creepy? Yeah, it may seem that way, but really, I don’t have malicious intent! I just met this guy named Phil and I just want to know if I can see him again.” Dan rests his hands on the counter.

“Sorry Dan. You’re a good kid, albeit a bit odd at times, but it’s policy that I have to keep personal information of my tenants confidential. If I could I’d lend ya a hand, but unfortunately I’d lose my job if I did.” John shrugs his shoulders and taps the end of the counter with his pen, and Dan’s ashamed that he thought about snatching it out of his hand and throwing it back at his face. 

“No, that’s completely understandable. Thanks John!” Dan walks away a bit defeated, because although he knew it was a long shot, it still stung to hear the words “sorry” in terms of Phil. 

As he’s getting onto the lift, Dan notices from afar a man running to make the lift, to which Dan sticks his hand in the door and leaves it open for him.

“Thanks, ‘ppreciate it.” The man pants and singular beads of sweat are dotted against his forehead.

“No worries. Everything okay?”

“Nah, I’m annoyed because I haven’t gotten sleep in ages. My stupid neighbor -love him, great guy- keeps playing the guitar at, like, 1 am. He’s good, but I’d rather he be good at more reasonable times in the day.” He scoffs and rolls his eyes, leaning over to press the button for the 5th floor. “What’s your floor?" 

Dan’s not sure what to do, but in the heat of the moment he simply shakes his head and gestures at the 5, indicating that he also lived on the 5th floor.  
They reach the floor and Dan’s awkwardly following behind this man, who is reasonably a bit off put by this random stranger, whom he’s never seen before, on his floor following him back to his apartment.

"I’ve never seen you around these parts before. You sure this is your floor?” Dan can tell he’s a bit frightened, and trying to get Dan to stop following him.  
“Just visiting a friend, and I’ve got no idea where their flat is." 

The man lets out an uneasy laugh and continues on walking, although a bit hesitantly. He reaches apartment 58, and swiftly opens the door and utters a quick goodbye to Dan. 

Dan nods with a halfhearted smile, and breathes out a sigh of relief when the man closes the door.

"I’m literally gonna get sued one day.” He mumbles to himself, looking at the two doors that surround the man’s apartment. 

There’s nothing extraordinary about any of them that makes them distinctive or abnormal; they were wooden doors with small, opaque plaques that listed the apartment number. He’s searching for something that he could have missed, and he notices one thing. 

A crack in a door hinge that can barely be distinguished, but Dan notices.  
The door feels hard against his knuckles as he knocks, inhaling deeply as to maintain some sort of composure. He hears a muffled noise that sounds a bit like “who’s there?”, but Dan can’t really make it out.

He hears the increasing volume of the footsteps and it’s daunting how intimidating they sound. 

“Yeah?” Phil says as he opens the door, and electrifying blue eyes meet his gaze.Dan takes a moment to absorb it all in; Phil’s got this glow to him that’s weirdly familiar and Dan’s entranced by the black hair that contrasts against the paleness of his skin, which is dotted with sparse, brown freckles. His eyes are bright, and Dan’s never seen a blue that pure. 

“Can I help with something?” Phil presses further, questioning why this guy was standing at his door looking like a deer caught in headlights.

Dan’s suddenly aware of how clammy his hands are and how dry his throat is. “Hi, I’m Kanye West." 

Phil cocks his head in confusion at first, but realization hits him and he just smiles at Dan, who can’t even breathe because he can’t take it. 

"Hey Dan!” Phil opens the door further to reveal his outfit for the day, which happens to be a blue jumper paired with neon green pajama pants. “It’s a surprise to see you; I thought you didn’t talk to strangers." 

Dan laughs, a little too hard for his liking, and abruptly stops it, which leaves Phil a bit taken aback. "Yeah, well everyone has to face their fear at some point." 

"Of course,” Phil says. “Did you need something? Want to come in?" 

"Yeah, that’d be nice, thanks.” Dan nods and follows Phil into the apartment.

Bookshelves of colorful books are the first things he sees, and behind them are framed pictures of random cartoons and animes.

“I’m a bit confused as to why you’re here.” Phil motions for Dan to sit in a nearby chair before sitting in the sofa across from it. 

“Wow, you really know how to treat company, huh, Phil?” Phil laughs, his tongue sticking out as he does. 

“You know what I mean. What’re you doing here?" 

Dan stays quiet. Usually, he’s more articulate than this. He’s used to being able to find words easily and have them flow, but he suddenly finds himself unable to speak. Dan tries to swallow down these nerves, but his throat feels dry and his voice, raspy. 

"Hello? Anyone in there?” Phil waves his hands in front of Dan’s eyes.

“Yeah, I don’t really understand why I can’t talk right now.” Dan laughs shyly. “It’s not really something you that you just, like, dump on someone you’ve just met, you know?" 

Phil nods his head with a pursed lip, but Dan can tell he wants to smile and it’s reassuring but he doesn’t want to mess this up. 

"I mean, you could totally be a serial killer.” Phil points out. “I’ve got no idea why I let you in my house.” 

“Why did you, then?” Phil goes to say something with a finger pointed, but moments pass and he still hasn’t said anything. 

Dan makes eye contact with him for a second and Phil bursts into laughter.“Phil, you can’t just go to say something and just not say anything!” 

 

“I know! You’re right; it is hard to speak to someone you don’t really know that well. Feels like when I’d have to speak to my professors from uni, and I’d get so nervous I’d just freeze, completely still.”

“So you went to uni! See, I’m learning more about you already.” Dan loosens up his shoulders and he’s feeling a bit more at ease. Phil’s house is warm and it’s redolent of freshly baked cookies; it’s a home.

“Yeah, so that means we’re already best friends,” Phil moves the fringe out of his face and Dan’s noticeably staring at the intricacy of his hands as he does so. “I’ve got to be honest, I really didn’t want you to come looking for me, but it’s not as bad as I imagined.”

“You really know how to flatter someone.”

And they both laugh and fall into a comfortable silence.

Dan can’t read Phil, and he’s usually good at being able to feel the atmosphere, but it’s different with Phil. He looks into the deep ceruleans of his eyes and they’re guarding any emotion that Phil could be showing, and it’s frustrating Dan because he’s not sure what to think.

The back of his throat is dry with the words that Dan leaves unspoken, and they’re collecting dust with how eager he is to speak them, but can’t bring himself to.

Phil breaks the silence with an inquiry of if Dan wants hot chocolate, to which he accepts happily. He’s watching as Phil gets up and walks over to the kitchen, where he can see him readying the kettle. Dan doesn’t mean to stare; he really doesn’t, but seeing Phil in such an intimate environment is comforting and he can’t not look.

The house fills with the noise of the soft bubbling of the hot water and smells of rich chocolate that makes Dan’s mouth water. He quite likes it, being here. The apartment glows a deep orange that reminds Dan of fall, and the smell of freshly lit candles that his mum used to light on Christmas day. He teases Phil with a small “need help?” as Phil goes up to reach for two mugs, to which Phil replies that he’s only like one centimeter shorter.

The mug is hot against Dan’s hand when Phil hands it to him, and he’s outwardly startled even though Phil had just warned him about it. They both laugh as he nearly drops the mug at the touch, placing it down forcefully on the coffee table with a bang.

He’s not sure how long they stay there for. All he knows is that they talk. They talk about literature and Shiba Inus for hours on end, and Dan likes it that way.

He learns that Phil’s a bit scared of the dark and hates the endings of movies, to which he suggests that he should just not watch movies, but Phil whines about enjoying movies too much that the end never gave it justice. He learns that Phil doesn’t like cigarette smoke or cotton scented candles because they smell horrible to him and he’s not sure why they exist. And he learns that Phil loves singing about stars because they’re not nearly as appreciated as they should be, because they’re far away in the night sky and most people don’t care enough to go out of their way to enjoy their beauty.

The hot chocolate is smooth going down his throat and it makes him sleepy because everything is soft and warm with pulling sleeves on jumpers and comfy blankets; it’s different. There’s residue of the sweetness on his tongue that doesn’t quite leave, but he likes how it acts as a reminder of golden leaves in the autumn scattered against the gray pavement. He’s feeling tired, but he doesn’t let it overcome him because he likes talking to Phil about galaxies and red moons against the canvas of the night sky.

Time doesn’t exist and Phil’s looking particularly sleepy with softened blues in his eyes and his face flushed a light pink. His hair is disheveled and pulled up into a messy quiff, and he’s replaced his contacts for a pair of glasses that are too wide for his face, so they keep sliding off, but Dan finds it cute and he hopes to god that Phil doesn’t notice.

He’s looking at Phil under the low lighting of his flat and it’s not exactly a picture perfect memory, but it’s intimate and Dan loves how the light places the shadows on Phil’s face at the perfect angles, because he seems so real and it’s helping him believe that this emotion he’s feeling is real as well.

After many yawns and admittances of sleepiness, Phil’s drifted off and Dan’s surprised that he was so trusting as to fall asleep with a complete stranger in his house. But then again, it was 2 am and Dan was tired, too.

He doesn’t want to cross any boundaries, but he still tucks Phil in with a nearby penguin blanket that’s too short for Phil’s body, but he decides that it’s enough. Phil’s face is peaceful and Dan wonders what he’s dreaming about, or if he’s dreaming about the stars that they both loved so much.

Dan leaves with a memory of this and leaves his number tucked under Phil’s arm. The walk back to his flat is short and he doesn’t quite know what his thoughts were as he wandered in the dark halls of the building, but he climbs into his bed with a tired body and a refreshed mind, and he sleeps well that night with the slowly rising sun painting the sky an orange-ish grey.

~

Phil [13:29]:

I’ve just woken up and found your number tucked cheekily under my arm

 

Dan [13:32]:

just woke up? it’s literally midday what r u doing with ur life

 

Phil [13:40]:

it’s not my fault that you stayed until 4 am in the morning! it’s going to be so hard to fix this now :( thanks a lot Dan

 

Dan [13:41]

no one said you had to stay up that late i did nothing at all this is ENTIRELY your fault

 

Phil [13:43]

i hate you :(

~

“Just try it!”

“Phil- this is a horrific idea.”

Their fingers are painted with blues and bright yellows that seep into their skin. Dan’s hair is perfectly straightened and his cheeks are flushed with a pink that can’t be duplicated on any palette.

“What are we even trying to accomplish here?” Dan makes a face of disgust as he dunks his hand in the cup of blue paint, feeling the thick consistency roll off his fingers.

 

“We’re trying to broaden our horizons, but you’re not trying hard enough!” Phil’s eyes are vibrant as he looks at the easels and the blues in his eyes are so beautiful and Dan tries not to stare, so instead he opts for staring at the blue paint.

“Well, when you said broaden our horizons, I thought you meant something along the lines of watching a new tv show or something, you know, not something impossible for two artistically inept guys.”

Phil splatters a mix of blue and red paint on the canvas, apparently trying to create a sort of Van Gogh eminence that Dan, frankly, doesn’t see.

No matter how absurd this is, Dan’s laughing, and it’s not forced. There’s purple paint on his favorite pair of jeans and there’s dots of pink lining his cheek, but he doesn’t care.

Phil’s running his fingers against the canvas and he’s quiet for a while, admiring what looked like their paint cans had just exploded on a white sheet of paper, but they made it together and Phil lets himself smile at Dan.

“You know, I think this may be my best work.” Phil ponders as he stares at the painting, resting his hands on his face as he does so.

Dan bursts out into laughter, unable to stay silent. “Yeah, but I think the best masterpiece is the art that you just did on your face!”

Phil’s face turns horrified as he starts rubbing all parts of his face that he believed had paint, but didn’t. Dan laughs and attempts to point out the exact spot, but Phil mixes up his rights and lefts and Dan can’t help but giggle.

“Dan, please get it!” Phil complains.

Dan grabs a napkin and reaches out to wipe the paint off Phil’s face, and as he does so they make eye contact that Phil shies away from with embarrassed eyes. Yet, Dan’s hand lingers at the touch of Phil’s face and neither of them say anything; they just smile.

Phil breaks the silence after too long and makes a remark about what new thing they should try next, to which Dan replies that the only new thing he’ll be doing is adding a new topping on the pizza he’s going to order.

They both glance at the canvases and laugh at the lack of any kind of artistic value that their “paintings” have, with Phil’s looking like a baby just sneezed different colors of paint on the door and Dan’s looking like someone had painted it blindfolded with their non-dominant hand. Dan scolds Phil because he argues that his looks like a reject from a primary school’s art contest, with the colors haphazardly splattered onto the white canvas with no attention made to their composition. And Phil counters with the fact that he’s probably secretly right handed, to which Dan denies and looks at Phil with disbelief, saying, “Who in their right mind would just pretend to be right handed?”

Before they throw out the canvases, Phil begs Dan to put something happy on it to remember the moment, and Dan draws a yellow smiley face on the left corner of the page.

All it looks likes is a yellow blob, but Phil likes it.

~

Dan wakes up one morning and he can’t help but notice how untidy his flat is. In his room, there’s an overwhelmingly large pile of clothes that sit at the corner that only accentuate the multitude of candy wrappers and clothing tags that are scattered across the floor.

 

It’s stupid, really, that he can’t even find the energy to just pick up the damned cigarettes that clutter the floor of his balcony. Every day tasks are just so difficult because he’s constantly plagued with the idea that he wasn’t living to the next day, no matter how much he tried to fight the pushing persistence of the dark thoughts that always sat on the recesses of his mind.

Sometimes he sits and scolds himself for letting him fall so deep into this horrid state of emptiness where he can barely do simple tasks that he knew would take the clutter out of the mess in his mind. In a way, he’s mad at himself for having a mind filled with dark scribbles and not being able to erase what he had done to himself.

But he’s stuck with swirling clouds of harsh pen ripping at the paper of his well-being with screeching tears that make his mind ache because it just won’t leave.

The bottoms of his feet make contact with the ground and it’s too cold and he doesn’t want to leave the comfort of his bed that keeps him warm and content, when all that awaits him was another day of pushing for the same happiness he once held, and barely has in his reach now.

All he hears are the sounds of his slippers shuffling against the wooden floor as he walks towards the balcony to open the curtains.

The sun blinds him and that only makes him feel worse because it’s warmth and reminds him of what he wants to feel, but now the sun hits him at just the right angle and all he feels is cold.

The reflection in the glass stares right back at him with growing intensity, almost as if it’s trying to speak to him and show him how much he was letting himself fall deeper into a routine of boring normalcy that didn’t define what he wanted or desired.

It used to be so easy and he looks back at how much happier he was and he’s not quite sure why he can’t grasp it now.

The doorbell rings and he wants to scream cause the noise is too loud and fuck, he can’t collect his thoughts when everything is so untidy and the noise makes it worse.

“Yeah?” Dan opens the door and greets Phil, who he knew was coming over but time had become such an unimportant, abstract concept to Dan that he never really kept up with it.

“Hey!” Phil greets him and lets himself in, scanning the messy flat and turning back to face Dan. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

Phil can see Dan clutching at the sleeves of his jumper as if he’s desperately trying to cling onto reality because he’s falling into a constant blur of messiness that’s mind numbingly annoying.

“Are you sure? It looks like there’s been some horrible accident in the flat, if you ask me.” Phil sinks into the sofa crease as he sits down.

Dan shrugs his shoulders with an indifference that doesn’t quite sit well with Phil. “Well, no one asked you, did they?”

And admittedly, Phil’s taken aback by this caustic response. He wants to reply with a similarly sarcastic retort, but he glances ever so quickly to see the dark circles underneath Dan’s eyes and he can’t recall the last time that he got a full night’s rest.

In fact, he can’t even remember the last time that his flat was completely tidy, or if it ever was.

Phil’s quiet as he stands up and walks to Dan’s room, ignoring his confused protests to begin clearing out the wrappers that Dan had left on the floor of his room. He begins to pick up all of the wrappers within arm’s reach, stuffing them into the nearby bin without a word.

 

“What’re you doing?” Dan asks softly, watching as Phil cleared out the mass amount of candy wrappers off the floor that Dan constantly tripped over every morning.

“Cleaning.” Phil simply says, starting to pick up clothes and laying them onto the rumpled sheets that Dan hasn’t washed in however long.

“Why?” Dan’s speaking in short sentences because he’s tired and confused, but his tone is quiet and appreciative because Phil was doing all that Dan had dreaded doing because cleaning had always been such a mundane, lonely task.

And he hated that he couldn’t even do the simplest of tidying. He’d pass by full trash bins that he could easily clear out, but he’d just stare at them for excruciatingly long moments in the hope that he could muster up the energy in order to do it, but he never could.

“Dan, the place looks so dirty! I’m doing you a favor, don’t worry.”

A small smile makes its way onto Dan’s face as he watches him arrange his clothes into dirty and clean piles, folding the clothes that passed the “does it smell bad” test.

Dan shifts his body and his shoulder presses up against Phil’s, who doesn’t shout in protest but instead stifles a smile. The touch gives Dan a sensation reminiscent of the same one he wishes he could feel when the sun’s rays paint his skin in the morning, and he doesn’t feel as cold because Phil epitomizes hope and warmth; he’s exactly the thing that Dan wishes he could encompass himself.

He’s fidgeting with his sleeves still, and a comfortable silence fills the air as Phil’s rummaging through multiple piles of clothes that Dan has created in different corners of his room. He’s trying to think of the right words to express his gratitude, but he enjoys this mutual understanding that Dan just couldn’t get out of this slump, and that he was going to get hostile for no apparent reason but it was okay. Dan enjoys knowing that Phil knows that he can’t control any of this, and he can’t stop himself from feeling any different more so than Phil can.

So all he does is voice a small “thank you”, and he watches him, admiring the way his hair was swept off the side of his face as he worked. Phil and the idea of him was always so pure to Dan, and he’s never been quite sure why. He sees Phil and there’s a part of him that aches at the sight of him, because he’s not sure what he’s done to deserve the ability to meet someone like him.

Dan tries his best to contribute as much as he can, but he’s tired and just looking at the mess makes him sick to his stomach, so Phil takes up the majority of the work while Dan just watches. His eyes are a softened hue of blue and his face gives off an incandescent glow that’s not too harsh. He’s vibrant and it’s distracting to the point that he’s blissfully unaware that Phil’s finished cleaning up and staring right back at him.

Phil runs his hands through his hair with a confused grin. “What?”

And usually, Dan would utter a half-hearted excuse about “being lost in thought” or make a sarcastic remark in an attempt to draw attention away from himself, but now, he simply just mouths a simple “just looking” and smiles with contentment.

Dan can tell Phil’s at a loss for words because he’s quiet and they’re sitting in a silence that runs over their ears with ease and Dan’s surprised, because with Phil, it was so easy and effortless and it’s not what he was used to.

Phil quickly stands up and brushes off the dust that had managed to get caught on the sleeves of his jumper with a sudden eagerness. “Erm, so I hope that helped you. Should I let myself out?”

“Someone’s in a rush,” Dan points out matter-of-factly, “but I was going to ask if you wanted to watch the newest episodes of American Horror Story? I’ve recorded them and I know you like the show as well, so I just wanted to offer.”

He can see that Phil’s hesitant, and the uncertainty is easily recognizable in the vulnerable azure of his eyes. Dan’s not sure how or why the atmosphere changed so quickly without warning, and it’s unsettling.

“Yeah, of course!” Phil finally answers. “Hope this isn’t your idea of Netflix and Phil, because-”

He isn’t even able to finish the rest of his sentence because he bursts into a fit of giggles that he can’t seem to get out of. The sound is almost relaxing to Dan’s ears and it’s so genuine and pure.

And it isn’t because his smile is picture perfect. He’s seen movies, magazines, and tv shows with perfect, smiling faces and laughter but he can’t feel anything from them because they’re manufactured, but now Dan’s looking at Phil and even though his smile is crooked and the skin around his eyes crinkle with every laugh, there’s nothing but adoration that fills him because he’s genuine and it’s real.

Dan hasn’t felt something real in the longest time, and Phil’s a reminder of the leftover pieces of what Dan used to be and he’s desperately trying to put them together and trying to make them fit.

“I guess you could say that.”

~

1 am brings cold sheets bunched up between Dan’s hands as he’s grasping for warmth, and his head is pounding and everywhere he looks his vision is blurred. He feels like drowning in a sea of sheets and shallow breaths of panic.

His room is illuminated by the moonlight streaming in from the window and he reaches for his phone with restless hands, struggling to keep his hands still as he dials the number to call Phil over.

His hair is rustled and his eyes are a bit tired, but Dan opens the door and the ends of his hair are curling upwards with the deep, caramel of his eyes softening in the low lighting.

“Sorry to wake you,” Dan simply says, running his hands through his hair and letting out a low groan. “I really need to speak to someone because I just can’t do this.”

“What’s wrong?” Phil sees stars filling the lids of his eyes as he blinks.

Dan’s grabbing at the ends of his hair and his eyes dart around for an answer that he doesn’t know. He’s at a loss of words and his eyes are blurred and he feels lost.

Phil takes a hold of Dan by the shoulder and nods at him reassuringly. “Let’s go take a walk.”

They walk on the London streets and it’s eerily quiet for what they’re used to. Usually, there’s people bustling about and Dan remembers too many a time when he’s elbowed people on busy afternoons walking to the shops. He remembers being in close proximity with about fifty other people under the hot sun and the closeness of everyone else made everything hot and miserable and sticky and he cringes at the memory.

 

And there’s no one around now. Occasionally, they’d pass by a couple of night owls who’d whisper and look at them, and Dan’s not exactly sure why, but he stays close to Phil in the cold night air and he’s all right with that.

They walk and it’s silent and Dan’s not sure when to speak. The words are clawing at his throat and they’re struggling to come out because he doesn’t want to mess this up.

His heart sinks and Phil’s eyes are worried, but he doesn’t want him to be; he just wants him to understand and he doesn’t want him to see this.

“Remember when I said I had a reason why I wanted to meet you so badly?” Dan can’t stop fidgeting with his hair because he’s nervous and he wants to busy himself with something or he’ll go mad.

Phil nods and Dan takes in a deep breath that doesn’t really help that much, because he still feels light headed and overwhelmed by these thoughts and overwhelmed by how he was going to express them.

He goes on to talk about every little detail of his downward spiral that began with forced laughs and turned into lack of any exertion of happy emotions. Dan relays the balcony and the way the floor looked as he stared from the railing, and the feeling of control he finally got a hold of, but how he heard Phil’s song and realized he needed to take control over his life and he couldn’t just give up, because not everything is set in stone and he needs to stop telling himself that.

Phil takes it all in and Dan’s afraid that he’s scared him away completely, and Phil’s not speaking on the way back, and there’s a silence that he’s not accustomed to because they always knew the outcome, but Dan’s in the dark and it’s killing him.

He takes Dan into his own flat and tells him to go on the balcony, where he’s able to see the stars closer and they’re a respectable brightness that don’t take away from the city lights, yet still don’t get drowned out in the artificial light of the London skyline.

His guitar sits on his lap and Dan’s wondering where he’s going with this, and Phil simply places his hand on Dan’s knees for a split second and begins to sing.

“Look at the stars,

Look how they shine for you,

And everything you do,

Yeah, they were all yellow.

I came along,

I wrote a song for you,

And all the things you do,

And it was called “Yellow”.

So then I took my turn,

Oh what a thing to have done,

And it was all yellow.

Your skin,

Oh yeah your skin and bones,

Turn into

Something beautiful,

Do you know,

You know I love you so…”

 

“What are you talking about, Phil?” The music is beautiful and it’s like none other that Dan has heard before, but he’s confused and the way Phil’s looking at him gives him butterflies that don’t leave.

“I know you may think that you’re insignificant in a world filled with stars, but little do you know, the only reason they’re shining is for you.”

Dan stares at Phil in awe because the music speaks to him and it comes so easily, and he wishes everything else was this easy.

Phil’s throat is closing up and he’s not sure if it’s the tears, but he’s staring at Dan with so much infatuation and he’s looking at the song that he wrote personally for him and he’s realizing how much Dan means to him. The way he looks under the moonlight is so cliché, because there’s a sort of innocence and purity that Phil hasn’t seen before and it’s like he’s covered with this ethereal glow and that’s when Phil knows he’s in trouble.

“You know I love you so.”

~

He finds that mornings aren’t such a burden anymore. Granted, there were always mornings when he’d stare at the ceiling in search for something bigger than there was, but Dan knows it’s never going to completely go away; it’s always going to be underneath the surface waiting to break him.

A lot of times, Dan would lie awake and just think. It’d be hours of mindless staring until he felt bad enough for himself to get up and actually act as a functioning member of society. But, today, the sun seeps in through the curtains at just the right angle and he actually feels warm.

It’s earlier than his usual wake up time, which can vary from twelve to one p.m., but he gets up by himself and gets dressed and brushes his teeth.

In the mirror he looks at the curls peeking out from the bottom of his fringe and he notices the dark circles under his eyes beginning to fade. It’s a refreshing sight and it’s relieving to see he didn’t constantly look like he was on the verge of death.

Dan looks around the flat with a clear head -mostly because Phil has helped clean up, and that gives Dan less to stress about and he’s grateful for that.

And usually, Sunday mornings were horrible; he always dreaded the next day and regret what he didn’t get to do the days before. It was an endless cycle of wanting to do more with life, yet always being followed by the realities and shortcomings of life that came every Sunday morning.

But today was different; today was sunny and it’s warm and for once, he’s not dwelling in the responsibilities that are to come, and instead, focuses on letting himself be happy.

“Hey Dan!” PJ exclaims at the door. “Fancy hearing from you on a Sunday; I never usually hear from you on the Lord’s day.”

“Actually shut up.“ Dan moves aside to let PJ in the house. “I’ve got some news, though. If it’s worth your time.”

“Did you finally buy some food for your fridge? I’m starving.” PJ immediately goes to the kitchen, to which Dan rolls his eyes at.

He’s rummages through the fridge and lets out an excited gasp as he pulls out fresh fruit. “Nice, melons, Howell.”

“PJ, this news is kind of more important than your affinity for round shaped fruits,” Dan laughs quietly. “I met him.”

PJ nearly chokes on a grape and makes an exaggerated noise that makes Dan laugh. “Unless you’re talking about somehow meeting Matt Bellamy, I’m assuming you’re talking about the balcony guy?”

Dan nods. “Yeah, I’ve actually spoken to him loads of times since then. We’ve been talking a lot; I just never had the chance to tell you.”

PJ winks jokingly. “Talking as in?”

“As friends. Jesus christ, PJ.”

He pops another grape in his mouth and raises his eyebrows suggestively. “So, when am I going to meet the guy? Does he pass the test?”

“There’s no test that he has to pass. If I’d put you through a test when we first became friends, you wouldn’t even be here eating all of my fruit right now.”

PJ feigns hurt and holds his hand over his heart, but continues to eat at the grapes placed on the table, to which Dan rolls his eyes and scoffs.

“He’s actually coming over today, if that makes you feel better, dad.”

"Now, son, I wish you would’ve told me earlier so I could have put on my good trousers!” PJ speaks with a generic father voice.

Dan goes to push PJ when the doorbell rings, and he glares back at him as he goes to answer the door.

“Hello!” Phil happily greets Dan as he walks in only to find PJ standing over the counter with a mouth full of grapes. “And you’re the best friend, I’m assuming?”

All he does is nod and extends out a hand for Phil to shake.

“Nice to meet you, too,” Phil laughs. “So, what’s on the agenda for today? I know you told me not to eat breakfast, but I’m missing my morning Shreddies right now.”

“I am actually going to attempt to make blueberry pancakes with assorted fruit,” Dan looks over at the fruit bowl only to find half of it was gone. “But at this point, it may as well just be one fruit.”

Phil laughs at PJ, who’s struggling to keep himself from choking.

Dan smirks back at him before he moves over to the fridge to take out the milk and eggs. Phil touches his lower back as he passes by on his way to the sink and Dan nearly drops the eggs at the sudden contact.

PJ laughs and winks at Dan and he’s fucking blushing and he hopes Phil doesn’t see it because PJ’s being a dick, and he shoots daggers at him.

Dan mixes the ingredients with a watchful PJ and Phil over his shoulder scrutinizing every small thing that he did “wrong”, like cracking the eggs with his hands rather than his feet like they had suggested. As he’s preparing to cook the pancakes, Phil tries to test the heat of the skillet with his hand, to which Dan shouts at in fear that Phil was going to burn his entire hand off, and Phil sheepishly utters an “oops” and Dan can’t help but laugh.

He makes the pancakes and they’re not perfectly round, or any distinguishable shape at all, really, but he stacks them on three plates with small toppings of fruit that he managed to salvage from what PJ ate, and they sit around the kitchen counter to eat.

PJ makes exaggerated noises as he eats and Phil yelps at how hot the food is, but it’s 11 am and Dan’s happy.

 

They enjoy each other’s company and talking about the commendable flavor of the pancakes, which Phil tries to take credit for because he claims, “how would Dan have made them if I hadn’t checked the skillet for the correct temperature?”.

It’s a long, drawn out morning of watching Adventure Time and making comments on the animation and the clever jokes that make them laugh and rethink their sense of humor.

Phil yawns and gets up to leave, saying he had a hot date with a vacuum cleaner before waving at Dan and PJ and leaving the house. Dan sits and stares at the spot that Phil was sat in and he just smiles because that morning was something he never would have changed for anything, because he had PJ and his chowing down on Dan’s fruit, and Phil and his unsafe kitchen methods and he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

PJ’s staring at him and he’s quiet until he actually realizes it, to which he raises his eyebrows as if he’s asking what he’s looking at him for, and PJ just shakes his head and smiles.

“You are so in love with him.”

~

Dan finds that Phil enjoys rummaging through his stuff and tidying, so he doesn’t complain when he comes over and goes straight to his room and begins cleaning.

He picks up dirty clothes and throws away wrappers that Dan didn’t even know were in his room.

“What’s this?” Phil asks and holds up a small box, interrupting Dan’s thoughts.

“Erm, it’s nothing; it’s just a bunch of miscellaneous crap that I stuff inside a box because I’m too bothered to do anything with them.”

Phil nods and gestures at it once more, non-verbally asking for permission to open up the box, and he’s greeted with a small smile of approval followed by an accidental brushing of hands as Dan reaches to unlock the clasp of the box.

Dan lets out a breathy laugh and retracts back his hand, muttering a small “sorry” to which Phil blushes at, and he opens up the box to reveal remnants of pictures, ticket stubs, and small notes written on bright post-its.

“Miscellaneous crap, huh?” Phil scoffs with disbelief as he leafs through the pictures.

Dan shrugs and he speaks with an indifference that doesn’t sit quite right with Phil.

Phil can see it in his eyes. There’s a hollowness he knows all too well from every late night on the balcony, and it puts him off.

He knows Dan’s struggling to see the vibrance in his life from before, afraid to see what he used to be, only to be angry with how it is now. Pictures capture perfect memories, and Dan hates it.

“Dan, you’ve got to stop living in the past.” Phil puts down the box and speaks with a seriousness that Dan can’t ignore.

“What?”

“You can’t avoid the past, but I see you and you want to go back but you can’t. I just need to know that you’re going forward and not staying back.” Dan can see Phil’s beginning to tear up and he doesn’t understand.

“Why do I need to? You don’t know how much it fucking sucks to try so hard to be happy and only remember when you could be that happy. And I’m trying so hard and nothing’s going to work for me. I used to be so happy, and I don’t fucking know what happened.”

 

“Promise me, please.” Phil simply states. “Every moment of your life from this one on is unique, and it’s yours, no matter what. You can’t replicate a feeling or replicate a memory. They’re out of reach; life only moves forward”

Dan stays quiet and Phil just stares. They’ve become accustomed to this sort of silence that sits whenever they speak, and they’re used to this. The room suddenly turns dark as the sun repositions itself and Dan’s picking at his sleeves.

“I promise.”

~

Whenever they sit on the balcony in a sea of tangled blankets and pillows, Phil always makes sure to point out stars and name them.

At first the names were beautiful and ethereal sounding, like Evangeline or Arielle, but after naming at least dozens of stars, Phil has resorted to using names of people he’s encountered on the street.

“There was a Paul and a Jeff who lived on my floor at university, so that small star can be called Paul and the big one next it can be called Jeff!”

Dan lets out a small laugh and turns to face Phil. “And what exactly was your relationship with Paul and Jeff?”

Phil laughs sheepishly and shrugs his shoulders. “Okay, I guess when I said they lived on the floor of my university but I may have just meant that there were two boys who lived on my floor that I just named Paul and Jeff without ever actually meeting them.”

“Phil- you can’t just go and name people you don’t know!”

Phil’s trying hard to suppress his giggles, but he knows Dan is too, and so he looks at Dan and manages to utter out, “I actually named you Winston the first time I saw you.”

Dan lets out a groan of disgust and pushes Phil playfully, to which he yelps out in protest. They break away into bursts of laughter that then fade away, and they’re left with the remnants of the night as the sky begins to brighten and the sun begins to rise.

Phil has his legs pulled up to his chest as he tries to fit his entire body underneath the penguin blanket that Dan’s been trying to tell him to throw out because he had no use for it, but Phil’s adamant on keeping it because it reminds him of the movie, Happy Feet.

Dan fixes the curls sitting on his forehead and Phil adjusts his glasses. They’ve fallen into this stage of comfort and while it’s normal, they enjoy it. They enjoy being able to exist next to one another and not speaking; the stars are speaking loud volumes for them, so they just smile at one another and keep quiet. They enjoy making small contact as they sit, legs outstretched and hearts put out on display, and the brisk air of the early morning acts as a reminder of the fragility of this moment.

Phil’s mindlessly running his finger across Dan’s leg, and the feeling is relaxing and Dan closes his eyes in contentment.

“I’m really happy right now.” Dan says quietly.

And he is. Phil just looks at him and the freckles on his face are easily noticeable under the light of the rising sun, and Dan finds it hard to believe that ever knew a time without Phil.

But he’s in this moment, with quiet giggles and fiery touches to the skin.

And he’s happy with that.

~

The clock’s ticking.

Dan sits on the sofa and that’s all he hears: the annoying noise of the seconds on the clock that goes tick tock tick tock, and Dan’s finding it difficult to block it out.

The words of the book he’s trying to read jumble together into an indecipherable mess that he can’t seem to make out anymore. It’s too much for him to handle, and so he sits in the presence of the never-ending clock.

Dan’s suddenly startled by a pounding on the door, and is surprised to see Phil at the other side of the door.

“Phil? What’s wrong?” Dan tentatively asks, but Phil bursts through before he can even open the door all the way.

“Dan, I really have got to tell you something and I can’t- I just need you to understand, okay? Please promise me you’ll understand.” The words are spilling out of Phil’s mouth in a sea of tears that begin spilling down his face, and the blues of his eyes are surrounded by piercing reds.

“What are you on about?” Dan reaches out to guide Phil to the sofa, where he sits and buries his head in his hands frustratedly.

“Just promise me, please.” Phil can barely make out in sobs. “Please.”

“Okay, I promise. Now, what’s the matter?”

He can barely bring himself together to say what he needs to say, and Dan feels his heart begin to drop, because this isn’t Phil. There’s a pain in Phil’s eyes that he can’t avoid looking at it because it’s heart wrenching and it’s growing with every second of silence.

“I’ve got stage 3 COPD.” Phil finally manages to say, but his voice wavers and he breaks down in another fit of sobs.

“You mean, the lung disease? You can’t have that- you need to smoke for like twenty years to even get stage 1, don’t you?” Dan tries to make sense of this and he knows he’s not a doctor, but his mind is racing and if he even allows himself to think about anything other than logic he’s going to scream.

Phil rubs the tears out of his eyes harshly. They’re noticeably puffy and it makes Dan’s throat close up because he can’t stand to see Phil like this. He doesn’t like being faced with this and he’s mad that he’s letting this affect him so much but he can’t help it.

“Erm, I’ve got this thing called alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. I’ve known that I’ve had it for a while, but I was young when they told me, and the doctor spoke with a bunch of fancy words that I didn’t understand. But, it apparently makes people easily prone to getting COPD; or at least more prone than we should be. They said they can still try to help me, but they’re saying it’s a bit of a late diagnosis, so it’s unlikely that it won’t go to the last stage.” Phil shrugs his shoulders and looks to Dan for some sort of reaction, but Dan’s emotionless as he takes it in.

“So you’re going to die, basically?” Dan laughs hollowly.

“Not exactly,” Phil pauses. “But it’s a kind of big possibility. It’s going to be okay, though; I’m going to be okay.”

Dan takes a few deep breaths, trying to maintain his composure but he gives in to the tears and allows them to run down his face. There’s a rising pain in his chest and stinging in his eyes that he’s too accustomed to to forget, and he’s mad at how weak he is from the tears that leave toxic stains on his cheeks reminiscent of fiery nicotine sitting in clouds at the back of his throat.

Tears are angrily clawing at his eyes and a droning, aching, full pain tingles in his shaky hands. There’s a stream of why’s that are racing through his mind, because he can never catch a fucking break.

And he’s trying to tell himself that things are going to be okay, because Phil told him so, but he’s too stubborn to stop the endless clawing at his mind or the ‘fucks’ that he lets come out of his mouth in an angry tantrum.

But he doesn’t think he’ll ever overcome this.

It’s unfair and he knows it is, but he feels helpless as walks over to the balcony window, watching the people walking about; people who didn’t know what he’s feeling because he’s a single, unimportant speck of dust in the galaxy.

And he’s never felt so insignificant or hollow.

His headache is getting unbearable and his thoughts are scraping at his head with bleeding intensity. And Phil’s watching Dan break down, but he can’t do anything because nothing he says will ever take this back, ever make this okay, because he can’t change science, and he knows Dan’s far from logic or reasoning that he won’t care; all that Dan knew was that Phil had limited days.

The stars have never felt farther away.

~

“How long have you known?”

“A while, actually.”

They’re sitting on Dan’s balcony because Phil insisted they needed to talk about it, but that’s all Dan doesn’t want to do, because thinking about it makes him sick to his stomach and leaves his head aching and his body tired.

Phil mindlessly strums his fingers against the guitar and the silence is filled with the soft noise. Dan bounces his leg because he’s nervous and when he blinks he sees neon lights and they’re blinding. Trying to ignore the stinging in his eyes that are begging for the release of hot tears, he tries to focus on the music that Phil plays and how it reminds him of the songs he used to sing. The way the lyrics sounded flowing off his tongue, the way the guitar sounded gliding against the night breeze.

“Do you miss singing?” Dan asks, smoothing out the wrinkles in his sweater. He’s not sure when was the last time he washed it, all he remembers is that he let Phil borrow it, and it smells like him.

Phil hesitates and stops playing, leaving the silence to sit on the air as Dan waits for an answer. “Yeah, I do. But, you know, the lyrics are what really matter to me. Singing was just my way of expressing them.”

“Sorry that you can’t sing about things like the Eta Carinae anymore.”

“It’s alright,” Phil reassures him. And he’s looking at Dan with such affection, and it leaves pangs of longing in his heart that he’s not willing to show. His face is soft as he smiles and Phil knows he’s in trouble. Dan notices he’s staring and yet, Phil doesn’t look away or break eye contact. “If it’s for something that beautiful, I’m willing for it to take my breath away.”

His heart swells, leaving his head dizzy with infatuation. And he’s kicking himself because it was the worst time to get attached, and here he is, sitting in the freezing cold air with Phil and he suddenly doesn’t feel that cold anymore.

“Want to sing one?” Phil inquires to Dan.

“Really? Phil, I’m not Whitney Houston; I don’t think I’d do your songs justice and frankly, I’m offended you would even expect me to.” Dan scoffs in disbelief.

Phil closes his eyes and shakes his head with a little laugh. “I know you were in plays when you were younger, Dan. Besides, it’d mean a lot if you did, since, you know, I can’t do it. Do it for me, please.”

Dan gives him a small smile and gives in. “Sure, what is it?”

“Just take the lyrics off my phone and I’ll play it. Just follow my lead.”

Phil hands Dan his phone and his Adventure Time case is cold to the touch. He grasps it and reads all of the lyrics, taking in every single syllable, rhyme, and letter. He mouths the words, feeling the way that they feel against his tongue and they’re tragically beautiful; Dan’s at a loss for words because nothing he can say could ever surpass what Phil has written, but that’s okay.

“Phil-” Dan begins to say, because he’s trying to put the pieces together, but Phil simply shushes him and begins playing.

“'Cause you’re a sky, 'cause you’re a sky full of stars

I’m gonna give you my heart

'Cause you’re a sky, 'cause you’re a sky full of stars

'Cause you light up the path

I don’t care, go on and tear me apart

I don’t care if you do, ooh

'Cause in a sky, 'cause in a sky full of stars

I think I saw you

'Cause you’re a sky, 'cause you’re a sky full of stars

I wanna die in your arms

'Cause you get lighter the more it gets dark

I’m gonna give you my heart”

Dan takes in a deep breath after finishing the last note, with tears forming in his eyes that he’s too tired to avoid. He’s staring back at Phil, whose eyes are blurred by specks of tears threatening to fall down his face.

Phil puts down his guitar and seems to be at a loss of words. He’s thought about this too much and it’s been excruciating knowing how much he wants Dan in his life, but he’s destructive and he doesn’t want to hurt anyone anymore.

“Dan, do you underst-” Phil begins to say, when he’s interrupted by Dan, who leans in and presses his lips against Phil’s.

He closes his eyes and returns the kiss. He makes note of how soft Dan’s lips are and the way their tears mix in the blur of chapstick kisses and soft murmurs. The feel of Dan’s hair tangled with his fingertips makes this too real and Phil knows this is going to hurt, but he keeps his hands grasping at the ends of Dan’s hair just so this one moment could stick with him. Dan cups Phil’s face in his hands, feeling the freckles across his cheeks and the fragility of his pale skin. He’s been waiting for something that makes his chest swirl with all of the emotions that he felt when he was younger, and this brings chilling sensations of both happiness and fear.

Phil pulls away, and they’re both breathing heavily, but Dan reaches out and leaves one last kiss on Phil’s forehead. Their breaths intermingle and the night is painfully quiet, and it’s surreal because it feels like they’re the only ones awake.

“I know, and I don’t care.” Dan simply says in answer to Phil’s question.

“Dan, you know what’s going to happen; I can’t do this to you,” Phil breathes out, and he’s worried he’s going to lose him. “Why?”

“Cause I’ve already given you my heart.”

~

Dan would like to say they’re getting better, but it’s getting harder, and Phil notices it too.

He sees the defeat in Phil’s eyes whenever they take the stairs and it’s too much for Phil to handle, because he’s breathing heavily at the end of them and he hates it.

So Dan breathes just as heavily, albeit a bit exaggerated, and exclaims about being out of shape. Phil sees this and he laughs with the little breath he has, because Dan’s a reminder of prolonged laughter and lazy Sunday afternoons; he’s familiar and comforting.

And at times, Dan falls back, too.

Phil sees it when Dan lingers too long when he looks out on the balcony, deep in thought. He knows he’s asking the stars for something that he can’t control, and Phil wishes that he would stop blaming himself for every little wrong thing in his life. He sees it in the way that Dan stares into his reflection in the mirror for too long, staring at the hollow browns bored in his eyes, and Phil comes up behind him and hugs him close to his chest, to which Dan smiles.

Their lives are perfect by no means, because Dan laughs with fake smiles and Phil coughs quietly into the sleeves of his jumper, but they’re okay with that.

It’s sleepy 2 am kisses on the balcony and low hums of star based songs that keep them going, because at times, it’s too much to see the deterioration of Phil’s lungs and of Dan’s mind; so they let themselves get lost in their own little world.

They converge under clashing colors in the night sky and the memories become etched in their minds above every discrete cough and every hidden tear.

And they’re happy with that.

~

Dan still enjoys sitting and looking at past memories through pictures that are slightly faded and crinkled at the edges, but he can see each one vividly.

He sees the day that he and Phil stayed up all night only to be greeted with the sunrise, with muted oranges that blended with scattered reds across the morning sky. He remembers every word spoken and every laugh he let escape his lips with sleepy yawns, and his lips remember the taste of sweetener with a little bit of coffee, because that’s the way that Phil made it for him, and he likes it because it reminded him of warm mornings when the sun would leak through the blinds and soft comforters straight out of the dryer.

Dan sees the day that Phil tried to teach him how to play the guitar, and Phil tried to learn the piano. He can almost hear the discordant noises coming from his nonrhythmic strumming and the hesitation of Phil’s tapping that made even Hot Cross Buns sound unrecognizable. He remembers the feeling of Phil’s arms touching his own as he reached over to teach him how to not strum like a “homeless man trying to open a banana”, and the way his hands would linger whenever they were placed on Dan’s.

But Dan remembers the first fight they had, when Phil found him smoking on the balcony again, and he can hear Phil’s relentless shouting even now, and the mere thought of the sound sends chills down his spine. He can taste the cigarette smoke sitting in the back of his throat now and it’s familiar, but it’s more bitter than before because it’s connected to yelling and shouting and angry tears on a Monday night.

His fingers feel the pictures underneath his fingertips, trying his best as to not wrinkle what was already wrinkled, trying not to bend what was already bent.

The phone rings and it’s a bit startling because it’s 10 a.m. and Dan was never usually up at this time, but he had been thinking too much about breathing and Phil and the fragility of life that he couldn’t stay asleep without dreaming of Phil’s deep breaths whenever he laughed too hard and thinking about how this disease took away from something so happy and so pure.

He picks up the phone and the voice on the other end of the line is unfamiliar, but she speaks to him in a tone too calm and it’s eerie how manufactured her voice sounds. All he hears is jumbles of words that are scraping at his ears as she explains to him that Phil’s in the hospital, but it’s like his brain has turned to mush and he tries to think, but in his head are a stream of fuck’s that he’s trying to hold back.

“I’ll be there as soon as possible.” Dan’s mind is racing to the point that he’s not even aware of what he’s doing anymore and he’s on autopilot that makes him call PJ and burst out the door.

Suddenly, all of these memories are clashing and he’s not sure what’s what anymore, and he can’t even remember what he shouted into the phone at PJ, but PJ shows up outside the street of his house immediately and Dan leaves tear stains on the steps leaving his house as he runs to PJ’s car and drives off with him.

The car ride is mind numbing and Dan’s working solely on emotion and there’s not logic to what he’s doing, but he’s picking at the ends of his sleeves and shaking his leg anxiously because the car can’t get there fast enough.

“We’re here.” PJ smiles sadly at Dan as he puts the car in park. “Good luck, Dan.”

Dan nods and mouths a small “thank you”. He’s not sure how to describe how grateful he is for PJ in that very moment, but he decides to think about that later as he rushes out of the car and into A&E.

The doctors stop him and tell him to slow down, and the words are pouring out of his mouth in a stream of almost incomprehensible syllables that he’s surprised that the doctors give him a small nod and direct a nurse to take him to Phil’s room.

He’s trying to block them out, but they’re talking about how they’ve stabilized Phil because he’s had a COPD flare up, and that they need to keep him for a few days because he could go at any time and that he’s made it unexpectedly fast to stage 4 since his last visit to the doctor.

The hospital is cold and the hairs on his arms rise and he’s reminded of the very first time he heard Phil’s voice and his heart is aching from the smell of bleach and cleaner in the hospital reminding him he can’t go back to the way he was before, with beautiful songs and breathy laughs. They bring him into a room that’s small, which he’s silently happy for because he’s not sure how much longer he can keep in these unforgiving tears, and they’re stinging at the back of his eyes, but he’s desperately trying to keep them in.

“Hey.” Phil weakly greets him with a small cough, and Dan shushes him before thanking the doctors.

“Probably a dumb question, but how are you feeling?” Dan moves Phil’s fringe into a quiff and Phil giggles, and Dan knows it because he remembers the time that Dan’s friend accidentally called it a “queef”.

“I dunno, kind of feeling like there’s a bunch of tubes in my body.” Phil jokes and he smiles at Dan. “I guess I’m having a little trouble breathing or something, I dunno.”

Dan rolls his eyes because he can’t believe Phil could joke at a time like this, or that he actually found it funny.

“You’re such an idiot,” Dan scoffs, “but I’m glad you’re okay.”

Phil holds his hands up in a challenging manner. “See? I told you I’d be fine. This is a body made of steel; I’m invincible.”

Dan nods and lets out a sarcastic laugh that Phil giggles at. He’s looking at Phil all wired up and it’s hard not to feel a bit sick at the sight, but Phil’s laughing and he’s beautiful, and so he overlooks that.

He grabs a seat next to Phil’s hospital bed and they talk for as much as Phil has the energy for. Hours pass and Phil’s trying to tell him to go home, but he refuses as he holds onto Phil’s hand, trying to desperately cling onto him and all that he emanates, because he’s vibrant even though he’s breathing less and eating less.

Phil coughs too loudly and the noise is cacophonous to Dan’s ears. It’s a harsh reminder that no matter how many jokes Phil makes, this is real, and he can’t hide from that fact.

Dan leaves lights kisses on Phil’s hand and he giggles at the feel of Dan’s lips. He whispers for Dan to not get them in trouble, but Dan kisses him more exaggeratedly and Phil just give him a small smile because he’s grateful for this, and for Dan, and he hopes that he knows that.

“I love you.” Phil barely says, and at first, he’s worried that Dan doesn’t hear him, but by the look of his face, he knows that the message has reached Dan because of the look in his eyes.

Dan’s suddenly reminded of all of his favorite childhood memories of ice cream trucks coming out on the only hot days of the summer and of meeting his first crush, whose name he’d totally forgotten by now. But those memories all precipitate into one emotion that he just feels for Phil, because there is no word or any string of words that could accurately represent the way he feels, but the words I love you are sufficient, and that’s all he hopes for.

Dan smiles at Phil and there’s no doubt in his mind that he’s able to feel again because he’s never been on a faster ride of emotions like he did with just three words.

“I love you, too. But I’m sure you already know that.” Dan returns it and there’s a feeling in his stomach unmatchable by any other.

Dan presses his lips onto Phil’s forehead and lingers there, feeling Phil and the warmth he holds even as he’s extremely sick, but Dan is trying to forget about that last part.

Finally, Phil convinces Dan to go eat, because it’s 11 pm, and Dan’s been sitting in the same spot for so long that he’s worried that his legs might not work anymore. Dan makes a sarcastic comment about how he’d never been able to use them properly in the first place before leaving to go grab a coffee from the cafeteria. He buys the coffee like the way Phil usually makes it: 90% sweetener and 10% actual coffee. It’s sweet and the taste reminds him of morning kisses when Dan would scrunch his nose and make an inquiry about Phil’s choice of coffee, only to find out that he’d been talking about his overuse of sweetener.

He sips his coffee on his way back to the room, but it feels like time stopped right at that moment.

It’s a blur around him as doctors bustle and run towards the room that Dan’s really wishing he was in right now, but he runs alongside them, trying to keep up and he scolds himself for ever leaving him and his mind is fighting itself.

There are blurs where his eyes should be focused, and he’s running blindly until the doctors are holding him back from the room, where he can barely see a group of doctors performing CPR on Phil and pressing their hands onto his bare chest to try and get his life back, but with every passing minute he’s getting more lost and he feels his heart in his throat.

The clocks have stopped and he just stares at the empty hospital bed with hollow eyes, believing this is all a dream, and that stuff like this didn’t happen, and he’s trying to tell himself that it didn’t happen but it’s unrealistic and soon, he finds himself faced with multiple doctors trying to tell him what went wrong and how “sorry” they were or how much he would be missed, but no one knew Phil the way he did and it sucks that no one else will be able to understand.

He takes a sip of the coffee, and it tastes bitter going down his throat.

~

It’s getting tiring to be known as the guy who was acquainted with that singer who died.

He doesn’t want to be known as just this guy, and he definitely doesn’t want Phil to be know just as that singer who died, because he was so much more than that and it’s frustrating that others don’t see this. PJ apologizes through texts and calls that Dan ignores for now, but appreciates. He knows that this all wasn’t for nothing, because Phil’s left a legacy that can never be tarnished; not by COPD nor by any kind of other external factor that rips hopes and purity, which he had found in Phil.

Dan spends a lot of his time on the balcony nowadays, and it’s not in the manner that Phil feared he would resort to, because he’s trying his best to commend all the promises that he made Phil and now that was all that mattered and he can’t neglect any of this anymore.

The night sky’s stars are even farther and true happiness has never seemed less attainable.

Often, Dan contemplates Phil’s words over and over again in his head, trying to see where anything went wrong and just trying to keep a hand on who he was. He’s not going to overlook the words he spoke, because those were what mattered most to him, and he knows that he deserves at least this.

Dan’s been getting better, because he keeps the flat somewhat clean on his own, and he’s actually found a place for Phil’s old guitar.

He keeps the recipe of pancakes that he made for PJ and Phil that one morning, but it collects dust as he’s too afraid to see what pure love and infatuation felt like before COPD ripped it all away from him.

He sings the songs that Phil never got to sing, with melodies of star songs that he knows Phil must have loved and cherished, and so he carries on the legacy of singing on the balcony at times.

He keeps the songs tucked underneath his pillow when he sleeps, because he remembers the balcony and how he’d go to sleep with memories of the lyrics on his lips, and keeping them close reminded him of glowing stars against the black sky.

He keeps his box of miscellaneous crap closer to him because it gives the idea that maybe, just maybe, the memories will come back and Phil will be able to come back to him, but he doesn’t and Dan hates this.

But, he’s trying to be more positive and take of life what he could, because that’s what Phil wanted, and as Dan looks up at the stars for solace from this news that makes him sick to his stomach, only to see that they seem brighter in a way.

He likes to believe that Phil’s up there making the stars brighter because he believed in all of our abilities to stay together and make something beautiful out of nothing.

He hesitates putting his hand on the doorknob leading out to the balcony, because it’s a daunting reminder of every cheeky conversation they had across balconies, and how he didn’t know nearly a year ago how important the man with the star songs would be to him. Dan stands with his hands leaning on the paint of the railing, feeling the way that it impacts his hands because he’s been so numb and he’s trying to feel something.

“Phil?” Dan holds back a choked sob that leave his voice weak and shaky, but he doesn’t care anymore. “I really miss you. I know you’re up there, probably shining a light on all of the stars just to make sure they don’t get left out. That was always something I loved about you, you know?”

The night sky seems to glow as if words were being spoken back to him, and it’s like Dan’s able to talk to the moon through Phil. The moon is bright and it reminds him of Phil’s smile whenever he’d make one of those jokes that Dan secretly loved.

And he’s trying to remember every late night kiss and midnight cereal snack that he had with him, and the way he’d slide down the wall with a huge smile on his face soon after.

“I’ve been doing what you told me to do.” Dan wipes the tears peeking out from the corners of his eyes. “I’m trying to move on, but I can see that you’d imagine how hard this is for me because I miss you. A lot.”

There’s no answer, but Dan likes to believe that Phil’s listening from up there. There are too many things that he has left unanswered, but he’s tired from hours of endless crying and telling everyone that he’s okay, when he really wasn’t. But he knows he will be, because Phil said so, and he likes to believe that every word spoken from Phil’s mouth was true and genuine, and it’s what keeps him going.

“Thank you so much for everything.” Dan lets out his sobs and struggles to keep his words understandable. “Thank you for teaching me about me and how the stars shine for me, and being the very luminescence in my life that has kept me going until now. I love you, Phil. Thank you so much for teaching me about everything I was scared to let myself know before.”

There’s no way to know if Phil’s actually listening, or if he can even listen at all, but Dan takes the hope in the fact that someway, somehow, he’s watching and seeing the impact that he will and has had on Dan’s life. The stars are bright and it’s like they’re talking back to him, and he swears that he sees the moon grow brighter and bigger at the mention of Phil’s name.

He’s still left with some of the leftover pieces of his life, but Phil helped him realize that they were fixable, and he’s grateful for that.

The stars have always spoken to Dan.

But now, they had a voice.

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on tumblr


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